Portal 2 is Great.

My god, I feel bad for taking this long to finish Portal 2. I do not see how or why people were complaining about the length of this game when it came out; after all was said and done, I was at around 12 hours of play. 12 hours to complete the single player and the co-op multiplayer. How is that a short game?

First and foremost, the story and the writing in this game are of a calibre not seen very often in the world of video games; the only other game that I feel comes close is Red Dead Redemption. I was very impressed by the amount of emotion the animators and the designers were able to get out of the faceless robots. It reminded me of Pixar’s WALL-e in a way, and that to me is the real testament to the design of the robots. The sharp writing, and top notch voice work bring this game to another level of detail rarely seen in the games of today. I would gladly sit back and watch someone play this game so I could really let the storytelling sink in. That is not to say that I did not like playing this game, in fact I quite enjoyed it.

Portal is a puzzle game first and foremost, so it is a rather good thing then that puzzles are great in both the single player and the co-op portions of the game. The single player tests are as good, or even a little better than Portal’s tests and the game forces you to do some abstract puzzle work on most of the late game chambers. I cannot pass judgement on how hard some of the co-op puzzles could be without proper verbal communication as my good friend and I played co-op in the same room. Even then, with the two of us being in the same room we both heavily relied on the ability to paint targets in game to help solve many of the tests. Aside from that, the co-op tests are fun, challenging, and always rewarding.

This game shows how, once again, Valve is at the top of the pack when it comes to storytelling. Whether it is the direct stories of the Portal and Half-Life series, or the indirect stories of Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Valve is able to create unique and interesting worlds. Let’s hope that this trend continues, and is improved upon in Half-Life 2: Episode 3.